In this new postMike Bronner shows you how to get the latest PHP5 and Mcrypt versions installed on OS X Yosemite to make ti easier on developers needing to run commands outside of Homestead.

Laravel Homestead has brought virtual machines for web development to the mainstream PHP developer: it makes setting up a development stack similar to XAMP extremely simple. [...] However, one of the drawbacks so far has been that you always needed to run Laravel Artisan commands from within homestead, as they depending on MCrypt being installed. [...] The accepted solution thus far has been to install newer versions of PHP alongside Apple's version using Homebrew or MacPorts. [...] However, there's another method I came across while research some non-related issues: install the latest version of PHP from a binary that includes the MCrypt extension.

He walks you through the complete process (well, except for getting Homestead - that needs to already be there) complete with each command you'll need. You'll need to be familiar with the command line to make this all happen and know how to edit configuration files. If all goes well, the "artisan" command will work correctly and no errors will happen during the compile. He also includes a fix you'll need to put in to get the database configuration working from outside Homestead too.

The SitePoint PHP blog has a new post today from Tounes Rafie showing you how, in a Laravel framework based application, to create a minify command with the framework's "artisan" command.

In this article you'll learn how to use Laravel's Artisan command line tool, and how to create a customized command. Note that you need to be familiar with the Laravel framework to get the most of this article. In this tutorial we're going to build a command to minify our css assets.

He starts with a (very) brief look at what Laravel commands are and the options this articular one will include. Next up is the code you'll need to create the command, making use of Laravel's integration of the Symfony Console component. He shows how to register the command with the rest of the application and how to work with the options/arguments for the input. From there he shows how to run the command and how to make some other improvements including colorized output and more information on execution.

In this day and age, it's quite normal for a developer to have an understanding of consoles, and how to issue basic commands. But what if you could code your own custom commands to improve your workflow? If we look back to Laravel 3, you might remember that it offered tasks. Tasks were extremely helpful, but still came up short for more complex operations. Thankfully, Laravel 4 packs a beefed up Artisan that will make your life as a developer so much easier!

They start by introducing you to Artisan and what it can do already, then move into how you can create you own custom commands (with code examples). They show you how to add a description, coloring for the output, work with arguments, use confirm/question prompts and working with dependencies you might need.